


The Password to Larkspur Lane

by middlemarch



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crossover, Female Friendship, Fluff, Foster Care, Gen, Horseback Riding, and Babysitters Club, echoes of Nancy Drew, latchkey children, penny candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 22:19:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11518653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: The oak was meant for a treehouse and a treehouse was meant for friends.





	The Password to Larkspur Lane

Rey was always the first one at the tree-house and she’d always tinkered with it in some way before they got there; there’d be a basket full of salvaged gears from Poe’s Garage or a something she’d found in Mrs. Mothman’s attic, the jacket from a uniform missing its belt or some piece of ancient kitchen equipment none of them had any idea how to use. Demelza always wanted to use the battered tin bowls to collect acorns and Diana had a plan to make a shield, though Rey had pointed out duct tape would not take the place of solder and a blowtorch. Rey had a game she played guessing who would arrive first, she had a million games she played to fill the times she had to wait, in administrative offices and outside courtrooms, before the school psychologist waved her in, before the others came. Demelza as responsible for making sure Sam and Drake had done their homework and were settled in front of the old TV watching whatever the antenna could coax from PBS before she could slip out and Diana had lessons, fencing and piano and French horn, aikido on Tuesdays and Mandarin on Fridays right after school. Her aunt Tio insisted she be allowed some time to play with the neighbors and since she watched her before her mother came home from her company, ready to review Diana’s homework the way she did invoices and dividend reports, Diana managed to steal away more often than not to the tree house that had been Rey’s dream and Demelza’s plan and Diana’s execution. 

They were the three oddest girls at school, Verity had said, not unkindly, as Verity was never unkind and always observant. She’d even known enough not to ask to join them, though she was happy to loan them any of her vast assortment of mysteries. They’d never managed to think of a name for themselves. Elizabeth had done that, christening them the Squirrel Girls for all the time the spent in the big oak that was technically on Miz Etta’s property but verged on being some sort of old-fashioned common green, missing a pump or stump to tie up a horse. Diana had a horse, named Trevor, but he was properly housed in a proper stable, and she was careful not to talk about him too much, how she liked to groom his gold mane and feed him slices of apple and carrot without ever worrying he’d nip her. Miz Etta called out the window to them every once in a while and aunt Tio had decided it was safe enough for them to accept her hospitality, little brown paper sacks of penny candy. Demelza always made sure Rey got the most, since Mrs. Mothman didn’t pay her much mind and she and her foster brother Finn were left to their own devices most of the time.

Finn was the one who made them like the name. Squirrels are fast and clever, he’d pointed out, they can climb and leap and they’ve got acorns everywhere, buried treasure they could find without a map. They’d never decided if they had a mission or a cause. Rey wanted adventures and Diana wanted to solve problems, like what was happening to the missing shipments of special “Copper” coffee beans arriving at the Nampara Café, that made Mr. Poldark scrunch up his forehead and slap the zinc counter-top. Demelza wanted to read and tell stories and sing, like the Girl Guides in some of the books Verity loaned them, but she wanted to write the stories and make up the songs. They were all good at taking turns because Rey had to be and Diana wanted to be and Demelza was expected to be and so when they found a clue, a torn burlap bag with some curiously gleaming coffee beans in the thick seam poking out of George’s backpack and when Kyle started dropping off an extra-tall styrofoam cup of something that did not smell like regular coffee with Principal Snoke’s assistant, they knew their adventurous story of putting something right had found them.

“The first adventure,” Rey said. “Our origin story,” Demelza added. “Our first mission,” Diana decreed, and then they scattered like squirrels, ready to reconvene at the tree house and review their discoveries.

**Author's Note:**

> I just had this giddy, sweet idea this morning about getting the three characters together and how it would play out, trying to channel all those great girls from fiction from Jo March to Nancy Drew, the crew of the Babysitters Club, Sara Crewe, and Anne Shirley, all those girls I grew up reading up who live in my mind still. The title is one borrowed from a Nancy Drew book. I think the repurposing of the canon characters is pretty easy to follow. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it (with a smile the whole time!)


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